Many web pages accessed through a web browser require users to search through an abundance of content to find information of interest. In order to highlight content which may be of interest, web page designers often incorporate color, unique fonts, and animation to focus a user's attention. Since users are often more sensitive to sound than text, sound effects, such as speech, are also used by web page designers to highlight specific content in a web page. Speech may also be used in web pages to enable disabled users to utilize web browsers more effectively.
Previously, the usage of sound in conveying content to the user in web pages has been limited to “static” sound. Static sound typically includes prerecorded speech or short audio clips which are streamed from a web server or downloaded completely to a client computer, for playback in a browser using a media player. Use of the media player, however, typically requires the user to install a “plug-in” in the browser for playback of the sound. Moreover, since static sound is isolated from other content on the web page, it is typically better suited for providing ambience rather than information.